“Congratulations on the solo practice…so what is estate planning?”

What is Estate Planning?

I was having dinner with some family friends over the weekend and was asked what exactly estate planning is and why someone should do it.

Most people have insurance – health insurance, long term care insurance, car insurance, homeowners insurance, life insurance, etc. People have insurance and pay for that insurance, hoping that they never have to actually use it. And, if all goes exceptionally well in their lives and they never get sick (I have), crash a car (also have), or have something bad happen to their home (that too), the only one of those which they’ll definitely use is life insurance (assuming its permanent) because, eventually, everyone dies. So that’s the first – and somewhat morbid reason – to have an estate plan. When you die, you want to be able to control what happens to your things and, especially if you have minor children, your family.

But there is much more to it than that.

Estate planning is doing the work of ensuring that everything you own and care about would be handled the way that you wish if you weren’t able to do it yourself. We protect those things to the greatest possible extent.